Dr. Frank Meyskens ’67 is a man ahead of his time. He’s pioneered preventive cancer care and research since the early 1980s, driven by a belief there must be a better treatment than bombarding cells with toxic chemotherapy — which wreaks havoc on the body.

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has named USF doctoral student and high school English teacher Diana Neebe ’17 its outstanding young educator of the year, for her innovative classroom use of iPads and other technology.

When business student Dalal AlDilaimi ’16 was 3 years old, her country was transformed into a nightmarish inferno as the retreating Iraq Army set fire to hundreds of Kuwaiti oil wells in the Gulf War. The devastating environmental and human health tolls were immediate and long lasting. Two decades later, AlDilaimi is a leading entrepreneur fighting to bring her country back from the brink.

Wolfram Alderson MSOD ’08 is waging a national campaign to save American lives by changing the way we eat. If he succeeds, it won’t be the first time. As a founding organizer of one of the first farmers’ markets in California and the nation in 1979, he helped galvanize the spread of farmers markets across the country and promote organic, farm-to-table food.

USF’s Jeanine Cotter JD ’93 is the CEO and co-founder of San Francisco’s largest solar installation firm and a national leader in the green economy, having taken part in a recent White House summit on alternative energy. She attributes her success to principles she learned at USF and to running a business that focuses on improving the environment and supporting the local community as much as making a profit.

Members of the USF community gathered at Gleeson Plaza on Friday to remember three University of North Carolina students who were killed Feb. 10 at their off-campus Chapel Hill apartment — a crime that some Muslim leaders suggest reflects a tide of anti-Muslim sentiment in the country.

Four USF professors have been named College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Scholars for 2014. This year’s award honors outstanding publications and research on matters as varied as the role of religion in immigrants’ lives, previously undiscovered molecular species, fictional short stories about broken hearts, and the roots of international conflict in Africa.

USF’s Gretchen Coffman is leading an international rescue effort to save an endangered cypress tree on the verge of extinction. Coffman, a restoration ecologist, compares the Southeast Asia cypress to California’s majestic redwoods, and National Geographic is funding her campaign.

The University of San Francisco has named the Chronicle Season of Sharing Fund this year’s recipient of the USF California Prize for Service and the Common Good. The nonprofit was selected for its commitment to assisting Bay Area families facing financial crisis.

A new website created by two USF professors allows patients and the public to learn whether perks from pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment manufactures may be influencing the treatments their doctors prescribe.

Business alumna Nicole Ponseca ’98 owns two successful New York City restaurants, where she introduces diners to the Philippines culture through its cuisine. The Filipina-American started Jeepney and Maharlika, after marketing clients asked for a Filipino restaurant recommendation, and she was stumped.

Community and government leaders came together at the USF School of Law Jan. 20 for “Beyond the Protests,” a panel discussion on how to improve police and community interactions in the wake of controversies surrounding the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and the lack of indictments against police officers involved in those incidents.

With protest marches against alleged police brutality planned for Martin Luther King Jr. Day in major cities across the country, civil rights icon and USF Visiting Professor Clarence B. Jones believes the United States is living through a watershed period.

Jazz singer Margie Baker EDD ’83 has incredible stories to tell from her 41-year career — how she was discovered by chance the first time she sang in public and how jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie became her good friend and mentor.

In the spring of 1984, Ramona Pierson MA ’03 was more dead than alive. The then-U.S. Marine was out for a jog when a hit-and-run driver ran her over. She was left bleeding on the side of the road with more than 100 broken bones, a slashed aorta, and a catalogue of other injuries that made survival a miracle at best.

Maria Poyer ’15 didn’t learn to read until she was nearly 14. She never learned phonics, and before she came to USF, she’d never written an essay. In fact, she’d spent less than four years of her life in school.

For Alexandra Morgan MNA ’00, the fight against cancer is personal. It played a pivotal role in her decision to become CEO of Family House — a San Francisco nonprofit that cares for children stricken by the disease.

Corinna Halloran ’07 is tethered to the deck of a speeding 65-foot racing yacht to prevent high winds or a stealth wave from sweeping her overboard. She is part of the first all-women’s team in more than a decade to compete in the nine-month, around-the-globe Volvo Ocean Race — considered by many the toughest sports competition in the world.

Katie Finch ’14, a participant in this spring’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice Law Clinic, recently won a case for her client thanks to her dogged investigation skills. The charges against her client were dismissed moments before the courtroom trial was about to begin, and Finch’s investigation also led to another defendant’s acquittal in a related case.

Mallory Browne ’13 could have landed a cushy corporate job after graduating as a standout USF business-marketing student. Instead, she saw a chance to make a difference and help save lives working for an international nonprofit that leads HIV/AIDS care and research in 28 countries around the world.

When USF graduate researchers landed in Guatemala to investigate whether fair trade coffee was benefiting local coffee growers, they never imagined the experience would be turned into a novel about the country’s tug of war between rich and poor, its colonial past, and coffee marketers’ efforts to win international consumers’ hearts and minds.

Imagine seeing what basketball star Roy Hibbert sees while flying through the air for a layup, as you watch the Jumbotron from your arena seat. Now imagine physicians saving lives by remotely guiding first responders as they see and treat patients at the scene of an accident. That and more is possible with technology created for Google Glass by a startup founded by Jon Fisher ’98.

Christine Yeh’s campaign to preserve a disappearing indigenous culture has landed the USF professor’s work, or more precisely her students’ work, in Taiwan’s national museum — where it’s made headlines and earned applause from the country’s Ministry of Cultural Affairs.

Provide the disabled with wheelchairs and they will switch from begging on the streets to working. They will live better, more productive lives and increase their income by as much as 82 percent. Those are the conclusions Justin Grider ’14 came to after he spent two months in Ethiopia conducting graduate research that made international economists take notice.

USF’s Barbara Sattler is at the forefront of a growing national movement to shine a public light on the controversial method of hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, and its adverse health risks.